Chapter 32: Became a Hot Commodity

After having his fun and finding a source of incense fire, Ning Xuan took advantage of the leisure time while others were still watching and resumed his daily routine…

But soon, he became depressed.

His Golden-Winged Thunder Duke was brought over, but he had lost interest.

The servant who raised the chickens tried his best, and even said that he had found a strange chicken in a certain village, but he was not interested. After teasing the Golden-Winged Thunder Duke a little, he had the servant take the chicken back.

His favorite fast horse was called “Wind Chaser.” He loved to ride Wind Chaser and gallop wildly in the suburbs, with a group of lackeys clapping and cheering on the side. This gave him a feeling of being a “handsome young master in fine clothes on a fast horse,” but now he had lost interest.

May I ask, if a weak animal tries its best but can’t even run at half your speed, what interest do you have?

He was not a child, and he didn’t like to play house.

He wanted to play for real.

Besides chickens and horses, he also liked eagles and dogs.

Who wouldn’t want to hold a yellow dog on the left and a goshawk on the right?

But eagles needed to be trained, and he had trained one once.

That time, the eagle was looking at him with high spirits, wanting to compete with him in willpower. As a result, he trained and trained, and found that it was boring, so he stopped training and instead raised two eagle-training guards in the Ning residence.

The guards trained the eagles, and he led the guards. This was the style of a young master.

During hunts, he would call his friends, with a pack of hounds following behind him, and guards holding eagles on their arms on the side. That feeling was very exhilarating.

But now, whether it was an eagle or a dog, he could crush them to death with a casual hand.

In the end, it had also become playing house.

Ning Xuan suddenly found that the things he liked had become low-level in an instant.

When the servants and guards saw the young master like this, they all became confused.

On the contrary, Old Master Ning was quite pleased when he saw it. He felt that his son really had the look of a general, and he no longer liked the things that dandies liked.

These days, Ning Xuan was playing, while he was using his connections to operate on the side, and at the same time, he was waiting bitterly for the result.

According to the rules, if a person with the qualifications of a general appeared in a certain place, it should be reported by the local official, and then the decision would be made by the higher-ups.

Of course, there were many ways to report.

Discovery was one, and asking for credit was also one…

The former meant that he could be transferred at will to a place that really needed a general, and this kind of place was usually a dangerous place; the latter meant that the great general below needed to “give up his love.” Although the Son of Heaven’s power was great, the Son of Heaven was also the person who lacked talent the least in the world. For the sake of local stability, the Son of Heaven would generally, when faced with a “request for credit,” still keep the person who was reported in the local area, unless the Son of Heaven had a love for talent, at which time the great general would naturally have to “give up his love.”

And for Ning Taiyi, the roots of the Ning family were in Wangyue Prefecture. He had been operating in Wangyue Prefecture for more than thirty years, and he didn’t want to move.

So, he would not lose his head and get carried away, and report over the head of Great General Qin.

He was waiting.

While Old Master Ning was waiting, Young Master Ning was not.

After a period of debauchery, he had resumed his training.

With the Heavenly Demon Records of the “Yin Wind Ox” and “Ghost Shadow Horse Monkey,” which had a constitution of “3.5,” his own constitution also began to approach these two.

He deliberately avoided Manfeng Mountain.

Because he knew that there was still an “Incense-Stealing Mouse” coming to Manfeng Mountain.

This demon was no small matter.

Although he had killed the strongest one in the nightmare, who knew if a whole nest of “Incense-Stealing Mice” had come?

At that time, the mountains and plains would be full of Bodhisattva golden bodies, which would scare people to death.

Even if it wasn’t a nest, but just one, after all, from the banquet of the three demons, it didn’t look like they were inviting a clan, but rather one person, so there was still danger.

The Mountain-Crashing Bear had a brocade kasaya, the Yin Wind Ox had a yin wind flag, and the Incense-Stealing Mouse, a demon that played with incense fire, who knew what kind of treasure it would bring.

He had to see clearly before making a move.

In the blink of an eye, half a month had passed.

In the sunset, Ning Xuan stretched comfortably and then looked curiously in the direction of Manfeng Mountain.

He was very curious, why hadn’t the Incense-Stealing Mouse come yet.

At least, he hadn’t heard of any missing cases in the surrounding area until today.

But with the virtue of a demon, since it had appeared, how could it not eat people?

He let out a long breath of turbid air, then did a few hundred high knees on the spot, and then scanned the panel again.

[Ning Xuan]

[Life (Constitution): 3.5]

[Nature (Spirit): 1]

His own body’s strength was already on par with the Yin Wind Ox.

And the attribute that the Yin Wind Ox could provide had become “1.75.”

His improvement in constitution could be said to be smooth sailing.

But his spirit was not.

In this half a month, he had also thought of using the “spirit of the Incense-Stealing Mouse” to drive his own spirit’s improvement, but he found that it was in vain. No matter what he did, he could not increase his spirit by even 0.01.

Similarly, he also wanted to comprehend the “Yin Wind Evil” and “Concealment Art” just as he had comprehended the “Bear Crushing the Mountain Peak,” but it was also in vain.

Obviously, he had encountered a bottleneck.

He still didn’t know where the problem was.

Ning Xuan was not in a hurry.

Anyway, he had become stronger again.

The incense fire in the four Bodhisattva statues was really a lot. He had absorbed it all, but it was almost at its limit.

The amount of incense fire that could be stolen was not unlimited, just like everyone has a stomach capacity, stealing incense fire also has a limit.

This limit was “spirit.”

You eat as much incense fire as you have spirit.

After he summoned the Heavenly Demon Record, his spirit was 5.5, so his current Bodhisattva statue was a little bigger than the Incense-Stealing Mouse he had seen before.

Such a Bodhisattva statue shell, plus his current enhanced constitution, was a step further than when he was in Manfeng Mountain.

However, he still couldn’t use the “Huff-Ha Art,” unless he forcibly consumed incense fire and used the Bodhisattva’s body as a price to forcibly raise himself.

This… was another trump card.

After all, the Incense-Stealing Mouse had actually been killed by him long ago. It was only by using this move that it had escaped death and counter-killed him with a huff and a ha.

With a thicker foundation and more trump cards, Ning Xuan was in a good mood.

He was already thinking about what music to listen to at the Chenxiang Pavilion tonight.

It had been really quiet recently. Even Liu Shirong, the young master of the Fugui Merchant Guild who wanted to “sell” his sister, didn’t come to find him anymore.

Everyone was so realistic, and Ning Xuan also felt very comfortable.

If Liu Shirong came to find him regardless of everything, saying that no matter what the future held, he, Liu Shirong, would always be his brother, and the Fugui Merchant Guild would always stand by his side, then Ning Xuan would be very flustered.

He would think, was Liu Shirong sick?

Or had he gotten some inside information and wanted to make a first-hand investment? Or had he offended someone he couldn’t afford to offend and wanted to make a desperate move?

Fortunately, there was none.

Ning Xuan liked friends like Liu Shirong very much.

There was no pressure in making friends.

Everyone had benefits, so they would get together, laugh and joke, and call each other brothers.

When disaster struck, they would fly their separate ways, and no one would care about anyone else.

This was the best.

As for his big brother, after helping his father earn the two dragon qi from Manfeng Mountain, his father naturally gave him all the dragon qi. He was in seclusion to digest and break through.

The place where he was in seclusion was called Zixia Temple.

Zixia Temple was not a Taoist temple in Wangyue Prefecture, but a great power that spanned hundreds of prefectures, dozens of states, and several provinces.

Ning Xuan had heard it from Chou Nu.

Chou Nu had said, “Many years ago, there were many Taoist temples, but after Zixia Temple was established, it unified all the Taoist temples at a very fast speed.”

Ning Xuan immediately became cautious.

Such a large force must be quite terrifying, and the process of unification must have been quite bloody.

Then, Chou Nu added, “Mr. Taiyi said that this was a request from the higher-ups. No matter what your Taoist temple was called before, it was all changed to Zixia Temple. That night, all the Taoist temples changed their plaques, and thus it was considered to have unified all the Taoist temples in the world.”

“Oh.”

Ning Xuan only replied with one word.

Now, Chou Nu was cultivating in the Taoist temple that had the name “Zixia Temple” but was actually his father’s territory.

A high-ranking official in a region, even if it was only at the prefectural level, was still a local emperor.

Before sunset…

Ning Xuan returned to the mansion.

As soon as he entered the mansion, he heard a familiar voice, his father’s voice.

Besides his father, there were obviously also guests brought by his father.

His father was smiling and saying, “My Xuan’er likes Buddhism, so he moved out of the house, away from the hustle and bustle, and burns incense and worships Buddha at the nearby Kushan Zen Monastery.”

The guest made a few “hmm” sounds.

His father said, “Look at what this main gate is facing. The Chenxiang Pavilion, the largest brothel in the ten li and eight townships of Wangyue Prefecture. Mr. Tang, you know that for a cultivator, women are the inner demons. Xuan’er has located his mansion here…”

His father clapped his hands repeatedly and said, “Good, even I have to say… good!”

Only then did the guest nod slightly and say, “It is indeed not bad to temper one’s own character with inner demons.”

His father smiled and said, “Mr. Tang is now in his prime and is in charge of Ping’an Prefecture. He has at least twenty years of tenure left. It would be good if my son could form a marriage with your family.”

Mr. Tang smiled and said, “No matter what happens, my Tang family can at least protect your Ning family for twenty years.”

Ning Xuan listened from a distance.

He understood with a turn of his mind.

It seemed that the matter of his qualifications was developing in a good direction. This Mr. Tang had come to invest in advance.

The Tang family would protect the Ning family for twenty years, and after that, he would have to protect the Tang family.

This kind of marriage was quite stable.

But he was not very willing.

He didn’t want to get involved in other people’s messy affairs.

He didn’t need the resources of other families either.

If it weren’t for the fact that the Ning family needed “him to become a general,” he wouldn’t even want to be a general.

However, he did not shout out things like “Xiao Jie, I’m still spending the night at the Chenxiang Pavilion today.”

Since his father had brought the person over, he had his reasons.

Even if he wanted to refuse, it was not the time to refuse in such a self-destructive way.

So, he tidied his robes, turned the corner and saw the main hall, his gaze falling on his father and a noble in brocade robes in the reception hall, and he bowed.

His father said, “This is your Uncle Tang.”

Ning Xuan bowed and said, “Uncle Tang.”

Then he smiled and said, “I just came back from practicing martial arts, and I’m all sweaty. I’m sorry for my rudeness.”

The noble in brocade robes nodded and looked at him, smiling and nodding, “Not bad, not bad, a good child!”

After speaking, he added, “Ning Xuan, you may not know me yet. I am from Ping’an Prefecture, and I am the same as your father in Wangyue Prefecture.

Your father and I are close friends, and my Bing’er is also of a similar age to you.

Bing’er is not a young lady in the boudoir. Many of the hidden weapon designs in your Wangyue Prefecture’s martial world were designed by her, such as the Storm Pear Blossom, Four Generations Under One Roof, and Five Sons Chasing the Heart. In the future, she may not be able to tailor-make a weapon suitable for you.

How about it, do you want to see each other?”

As soon as the words fell, Ning Taiyi on the side was stunned for a moment.

He had brought this noble in brocade robes here just to not offend the other party and maintain a good relationship.

He knew in his heart that if his Ning family wanted to be as solid as a rock, they still had to form a marriage with Great General Qin’s family. What’s more, as a great general, Great General Qin naturally had his own cultivation method for generals, which would be beneficial to Xuan’er.

On the other side, Ning Xuan naturally would not make a rash promise.

The air became quiet.

The laughter of the noble in brocade robes broke the silence.

“Bing’er is obsessed with hidden weapons day and night. She may not even know that I, her father, have come to arrange a marriage for her. Ning Xuan, this time, it can be considered that I have come in a hurry. Later, I will have someone send a portrait according to the rules.

After that, even if the marriage doesn’t work out, you have at least called me uncle today. If you have any trouble in the future, I, as your uncle, will naturally not stand by and do nothing.”

Ning Xuan smiled and said, “Uncle Tang, I have a trouble right now.”

The noble in brocade robes was stunned.

Ning Xuan said, “I just got a new batch of fine wine in the mansion, but these days, there is no one to drink with. May I trouble Uncle Tang to have a drink with me?”

The noble in brocade robes smiled and pointed at him, “Soon, you won’t have to worry about having no one to drink with.”